Three Graces
by The Amazing Maurice
Summary: FINISHED. “We’ll get out of here. I’ll make sure of it.” Nasty little futurefic; TR preslash (3 of 3)
1. Faith

**Three Graces **

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Summary: "We'll get out of here. I'll make sure of it." Nasty little futurefic; T/R preslash (1/3) 

Disclaimer: Have you noticed that the average Entslash fanwriter could produce better, not to mention more canonically-accurate scripts than the people at Paramount apparently can? And yet, it all belongs to them, and they get lots of money from it. The buggers.

Author's Notes: This is what I did instead of schoolwork today. A random brain fart writ large; it also turns out I can't even write something this small without there being even a tiny smidgen of slashiness. Don't worry, it's very general and inoffensive. Unlike the rest of this fic. Enjoy!

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_Faith _

"Never mind," says Cauley, and goes back to shredding her blanket. Trip can't even remember what they were talking about.

It's been a long time. Long enough for Trip to start forgetting things, like what happened today and where he is and even his own name sometimes, and he's come to actually prefer those days; long enough for Malcolm's fingernails to grow back and the weals to scar over (though there's plenty of other marks, symmetrically arranged on his arms and back and feet, that must be more recent); long enough for Crewman Jasper to starve himself to death and Ensign Cauley to go insane.

A few months, maybe.

"Trip," Malcolm whispers from the bunk above. Weird, that they have bunks. Very human things. Shaving gear, too, and soap, and adequate food rations. They keep them in such clean, white, brightly-lit rooms, with all the things a human being could need. Whoever they are, they've really done their homework. That, or… but no, that always slips away from him before he can think it. Never mind.

"Trip," Malcolm says again, because Trip didn't answer the first time. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate, recently. Sometimes he just gets distracted by a thought, like the last piece of conjectural Warp theory he heard, or a really great recipe for steak, or, like now, just how funny Malcolm looks when he's trying to stay calm and reasonable even though he really wants to bite someone's head off.

Trip realises that this isn't normal, that this isn't how his brain used to be, but it's all slipping away from him, like a dream he's trying to hold on to; he's only just better than Cauley, sometimes. The only one of them who makes sense any more is Malcolm, and that's because he still fights them. Hard to be distracted by anything with spikes through the palms of your hands.

Trip gets up, and helps him stand; Malcolm's having trouble moving these days. Trip's afraid there's something wrong inside, and it's worse because he knows they won't help if something _is _wrong, just like they wouldn't help Jasper (_the_ _last_ _time_ _you_ _fought_ _them_). He can feel Malcolm's ribs under the thin, anonymous clothing that they wear.

He's seen the same clothing on everyone here: aliens of all shapes and sizes, humanoid, ones they've seen and ones they haven't. It's like a zoo; they're herded to the breakfast hall (and Trip can never remember breakfast, either), poked and prodded in the right directions by imposing figures in some kind of armour that obscures their form and features; they never speak, he's never heard them speak. Clean, white, brightly-lit corridors, full of docile, shuffling figures, blearily watching their guards subduing anyone with fight left and dragging them away to clean, white, brightly-lit rooms where shitty red things happen.

Cauley's messed herself again, and hasn't even noticed. The cell's so clean and pristine in the mornings, he feels almost guilty when they get the white tiles dirty; but they can't help it, what with Cauley's fits and Malcolm being thrown back inside with wounds reopened every few days – God knows, the blood gets everywhere. They've fallen into a pattern of cleaning up Cauley and putting her to bed, since she won't do it herself; they do it now, taking away the strips of filthy blanket she's tying together ("No windows to climb out of," Malcolm tells her, and she seems to take his word for it), tucking her into the bottom bunk. There's only two beds since Jasper died, and it doesn't seem gentlemanly otherwise. Maybe they expected one of them to sleep with her.

_Like a Goddamned zoo._

They're hurrying now, trying to clean up the mess and get into bed before lights-out, when anyone who isn't asleep or faking it gets knocked out with stick-weapons like tazers – or cattle prods, that fits better – by the guard who prowls the low-lit corridor after shutdown. Malcolm calls him the Matron, and thinks this is very funny. Trip doesn't really get the joke, but Malcolm doesn't seem to mind.

They lie together on the top bunk, perfectly used to their positions in the cramped space by now, tensing in time as the guard walks past their cell and dims the lights. Malcolm sighs and folds him hands against his chest: They've been stabbed through the palms again. Trip can barely remember the scuffle in the breakfast line; he hates that, and he hates Malcolm for fighting and Jasper for dying and Cauley for being crazy. He feels like he's been in this fucking facility all his life, and he can't remember what he used to do or how they came to be here. He hates that more than anything.

Malcolm is curled up with his back to him, and in this small bunk that means that his dark head is pretty much tucked right under Trip's chin. Trip's eyes adjust to the darkness, and he stares at the angry, inflamed wounds on those pale hands. He wishes Malcolm would stop fighting.

Malcolm feels his stare, and, as if reading his mind, whispers, "I have to fight them, Trip. We have to remember."

Trip is silent for a moment. Then he whispers back, in a voice thick from disuse, "Mal? Do you remember how we got here?"

A long pause. Then, "…No. No, I don't remember."

Trip reaches arms around him, and cradles the mutilated hands very carefully in his own. "You're always getting hurt," he says sadly.

"We'll get out of here, Trip. Someone will come for us, or… We'll get out of here. I'll make sure of it."

And somehow, Trip believes him.

"Promise?" he says.

Malcolm's eyes glitter in the dim light.

"Yes."

And they sleep.

_1/3_


	2. Hope

Disclaimer: Just checking… aaaaand, ooh, look at that: they're still not mine.

Author's Notes: Part two. Thanks for the lovely reviews so far – and the final part's already written, so worry not. You'll just have to wait…

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Hope 

Trip comes to in the line for breakfast, shuffled between a beaten-looking Klingon and Cauley, who is chewing her hair. He blinks and twists his head around, looking for Malcolm, because this is really important, he's never awake outside the cell, he remembers things happening, but he's never _there_—

He finds Malcolm four spaces ahead of him, with the same startled, hyperaware expression he must have on his own face. Their eyes meet, and a message passes between them: _stay awake. _Distracted, he steps back and bumps into the Klingon, who starts and growls uncertainly.

Trip realises then that he's not bound: his hands aren't tied, he's not chained to anything… of course. He doesn't have to be, as long as he doesn't know what's going on.

_They don't give you food at breakfast, do they?_

He's awake. He's aware. He meets Malcolm's eyes again and understands at last: do _anything_ to stay that way. _Anything. _It's worth it.

He sees a guard, in its formless armour, prodding random people along, unarmed, like the other dozen up and down the corridor…

(He doesn't remember much after that, just flashes – but he remembers _some_, and that's an improvement.)

He remembers that it's like a silent movie at first – like there should be lots of yelling, but instead there's a ripple, a mutter at most. Then there's shouts off to either side, and the ripple grows to a roar, and he can't remember the sight of anything but he can remember breathlessness, and then white tile, bright light, clean, sterile, wicked things that _hurt_…

He remembers quiet. Then there are voices, rising and falling, distorted, just out of earshot; then he hears close by:

"… Quite remarkable… a growing number… who actively favour memories… sense of self over personal wellbeing, actually _using_… pain—" and then someone else says something, and the voices move away again.

He remembers that like it's the most important thing in the world; it's significant for some reason that he can't quite grasp right now, and he wants to remember it so he can ask Malcolm, but he's in such incredible agony that he can't even keep a grip on the idea…

He wakes up on the gleaming white floor of their cell. His first thought is that the assholes must have cracked his ribs or something, because every breath feels like fire – he clenches his fists against the sensation and a bolt of pain stabs from fingertip to elbow, leaving a roaring throb in its wake.

There's a ragged, bleeding hole in the centre of each palm, as if someone's stuck a spike right through his hands.

He gasps and flinches as bloody, white fingers grasp his own, and hey, what do you know? There's holes torn through those hands too, front to back, an ugly ring of pink scar tissue building around the edge from the from the previous dozen times.

"I remembered," Trip laughs hoarsely, as they clumsily bandage each other's hands with torn-up strips of the ubiquitous clothing. Malcolm gives him a quick half-smile, and talks eagerly with him about what they can remember, filling in each other's gaps – but Trip can see how ashen his face is; there are hitches in his breathing that he can't hide, and his movements are painfully stiff.

"What did they do to you?" Trip murmurs at last.

"Nothing they haven't before," Malcolm stubbornly replies, but there's a cynical noise from Cauley's patch of the room. He sets his jaw. "I suppose they've just done it a bit too much."

After that, they're mostly silent until it's lights out again; and if they curl around each other too closely, too warmly for friends, neither says or does anything to bring it to the other's attention.

"You remembered today," Malcolm whispers under Cauley's snores.

"Yeah, I did," Trip says proudly, and then they gasp and go silent as the guard stops outside their cell, peering in suspiciously through the softly humming lattice; they wait until he's several cells away before they even dare to breathe again.

Then Trip remembers something. "Are there always that many people fighting?" he asks, though he thinks he knows the answer already.

Malcolm's eyes gleam. "No," he confirms in a satisfied undertone. "Never that many, not even in the beginning."

"You think more people are waking up? Maybe they're learning about the pain?"

Malcolm frowns to himself and is silent, thinking. Trip bites his tongue, watching Malcolm's face – pale, much paler even than it usually is; his cheekbones are very prominent, and Trip wonders how many meals he's missed in the white rooms. He looks down, then, at their bandaged hands, which are curled together between their bodies. It's slightly chilly in their white cell, but the warmth between them, around their hands, is terrific.

At last, Malcolm says in a low voice, "I wonder… I don't think it can be very long before they – whoever is doing this, whoever is watching us – before they work out what we're doing… if they don't know already—"

"Dammit!" Trip says suddenly.

"What?" Malcolm says, startled. "Trip, what is it?"

"Something…" Trip squeezes his eyes shut. "I don't believe this. Something I can't quite… dammit, I had it. I just had it, I just remembered…" But it's gone.

He feels cool fingers touch his brow, and looks up into Malcolm's concerned grey eyes. "Never mind," Trip says. "Never mind. I'll remember it sometime." Malcolm is still frowning at him, so he grins in the dark and says, "Hey, you sounded like you had a plan going there, fearless leader?"

Malcolm sighs. "I just… Well, I suppose that if we're going to escape, it'll have to be soon. You saw how many woke up this morning. If they're anything like us, all it will take is a little pain to wake them again. Who knows? We may even be able to wake up more than that – either way, there would be too many for all the guards to subdue, and if we can start a riot and then stay in the middle, we may be able to get out of that corridor without anyone noticing us. From there, well…"

"We'll have to wing it," Trip finishes with a wry smile.

"I admit it's not much as plans go." A chagrined admission.

"What if everyone tried to get out at once?" Trip asks. "They couldn't contain that many people, like you said, and wouldn't we be safer in a group like that?"

"I'd thought of it," says Malcolm. "It's a possibility, but there's too many things that could go wrong: we could easily get separated, or attract a whole army of guards, whereas with just the three of us… well, it would be extremely difficult to evade capture if someone sees us, but with just the three of us, we stand a much better chance of avoiding being seen in the first place." He adds ruefully, "Not to mention the fact that very few people around here are likely to speak English."

Trip's heart sinks momentarily. He would have felt better if they could get more people out. But he can't imagine what will might happen if they're separated; as it is, it'll be difficult to keep a hold of Cauley, who is barely together at the best of times.

"When?" he says.

"Tomorrow. It'll have to be."

"Tomorrow," Trip murmurs, and gently takes hold of Malcolm's hands.

He has good dreams that night.

He doesn't remember them, but they're good.

2/3


	3. Charity

Disclaimer: Blah blah, Paramount. Blah blah. 

Author's Notes: FINISHED! I never thought I'd do this fandom, but here we are. Thank you for the lovely encouraging reviews, and please don't stone me for the ending...

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Charity 

Trip's awake and in pain even as the lights come on: unprecedented. A good omen. He eases painfully off the bunk bed, wincing as his feet hit the unyielding tile and a stinging rattle passes through his joints.

Cauley wakes up then, with a blank, unintelligent gaze that he's come to recognise. He reaches out and pushes her shoulder, hard; she doesn't blink. He grabs one of her fingers and twists it 'til it almost breaks; she gasps and yanks her hand away.

"Ouch!"

He sighs in relief, and slumps against the post of the bed – he feels like an old man, tired and sick; his chest hurts like hell for some reason. Cauley glares at him from under her straggling, dirty hair. "You hurt me!" she snaps, clutching her abused hand; then she blinks and looks around as if she hadn't realised where they were. "Morning?"

"Yeah," he says hoarsely. "Listen, Cauley: whatever happens today, stick with us, all right?"

"You hurt me," she repeats sullenly.

"Ensign Cauley," says a cracked, authorative voice from the top bunk. "You were just given an order."

Cauley starts, still rubbing her finger; then, to Trip's surprise, she nods and stands aside, saying "Yes, sir," in a dazed voice.

Malcolm almost crumples as he hits the floor. Trip, startled, takes his arm and helps him stand. His face is chalk-white; his teeth are clenched. Trip opens his mouth to call the whole thing off, to damn well order him to just fucking lie down and _stop_— "I'm fine, let me go," Malcolm hisses.

Trip gapes at him. The floodgates swing wide open at those two words, and more memories crash into him than he can possibly understand or make sense of at once: those words, and faces, and places, and colours, so many different colours that he'd almost forgotten existed outside this sterile whiteness. His grip on Malcolm's arm tightens painfully – he wants to tell him what he can remember, wants to tell him before he forgets again, and maybe they'll tell them something, maybe they can make sense of them – but then the guard walks past, and it's time to go.

Malcolm brushes Trip's arm as he limps past, an unobtrusive, reassuring touch. They shuffle out, convincingly docile, into the glaring white corridor and join the lines.

And it's so easy once they're out there, to crunch a few toes (of any shape and number), to kick some ankles, to surreptitiously shove the guy in front – though plenty don't react at all, some just needed that little extra hurt to push them over the edge, to break the hold. Some gasp and some growl, some start chattering bewilderedly in their own bizarre language. Soon enough there's a dozen aliens in the throng who are suddenly awake, alert, and pissed as hell, and that dozen turns into twenty, and that twenty into thirty, and pretty soon there's full-scale fights breaking out all over the place. He realises that some were already awake, like they were, faking it – he recognises the Klingon from the day before, angrily backhanding a Denobulan woman. In minutes, before the guards have realised what's going on, the clean, white, brightly-lit corridor is alive with screaming, heaving, scuffling bodies.

Trip finds Malcolm somewhere in the centre of it all, frantically looking for Cauley; they find her in a scrum of stick-thin creatures who are grabbing at her arms and hair, screeching at her in some clicky, unintelligable language – she elbows her way out on her own; they grab her and run.

"Stay in the middle," Malcolm says hoarsely. "Keep running and for God's sake don't split up, whatever you do."

Trip's not sure that Malcolm's in any shape to run; Trip himself can barely breathe through the fire in his throat, so he has no idea what's keeping Malcolm going, except sheer fucking stubbornness. Shit, knowing him, that might be enough.

God, he hopes it's enough.

Pushing roughly through the crowd, sometimes reaching out and grabbing an arm when one of them gets too far ahead or strays too far to the side, they see the end, and a long, dark corridor beside the hall where the lines file in in the morning – he can hear screams coming from inside, but it doesn't matter now, they have to get through that next corridor—

Even when his eyes adjust, it's barely light enough to see. The corridor is long, very long, and labarynthine, twisting and curving every which way, sometimes sloping upwards, sometimes sloping down. They run, and after a while the sound of the fight behind them fades away completely; all they can hear is the sound of their footsteps, echoing ominously in the dim, cool tunnel.

They turn a hairpin corner, and for the first time, there's a branch in the path. Straight ahead – a curve a little further on, white light again – or to the side, a narrow way, dark like the path behind. Which way? "In there," Malcolm croaks suddenly, nodding to the side passage. Trip's not certain; he's sick of the dark, but Malcolm grabs his arm none too gently and yanks them inside, and just around the corner.

After a few seconds of breathless waiting, Trip says, "Wh—"

"Ssshh!"

And then he hears the soft clack-clack-clack-clack of trotting guards, coming up the hallway where they'd been running, not ten feet away. Jesus, Trip thinks, if we'd been five minutes slower…

The tunnel is dark, but they're used to it by now, exhausted and shocky and scared out of their wits – in truth, they hadn't envisioned making it this far, and they won't know what to do if they actually manage to get out. It doesn't matter. They keep going, quieter now but just as hasty, up and down and around weird twists and rises in the passage.

At the top of a steep incline, Malcolm staggers and crashes to his knees, retching violently. There's nothing to bring up, Trip knows, because neither of them have eaten since the day before yesterday; he drops down beside Malcolm and holds him until it subsides. He can feel his own limbs shaking as it is, and there's something thick and copper-tasting in the back of his throat. His hands and feet are bleeding profusely; his chest and throat are fire.

Malcolm coughs and rasps for a few seconds more, then swallows hard a few times, bows his head and wipes his mouth roughly. Cauley is against the far wall, watching him with puzzlement and vague concern. "Sick like Jasper?" she says quietly. Trip whips his head up furiously, ready to tear her head off; but at that moment, Malcom pulls out of Trip's arms and staggers to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall.

"Sick like Jasper," he echoes hoarsely, passing a hand over his eyes. "No. No."

Even in the dimness, Trip can see the dark smear at the corner of his mouth, and the glistening stains all over his fingers.

It's only a little further before they reach a wider corridor again. They follow it – staggering, barely able to move still, let alone run – until they see, ahead, a door. It's a swing door, an old-fashioned swing door with a handle and everything: incongruous, puzzling. It opens with a hard push. On the other side is a vast hall, like a cargo bay, also dimly lit, and something hidden behind the wall makes the air rumble and the floor vibrate. This is it. The end of the road.

"Where now?" he says. He can barely hear himself over the noise.

Then Cauley points. On the far side is a stairwell – he hadn't seen it before; everything in this damn place is white – but seeing it, he follows it upward with his eyes, and up, and up, and up…

"God," Cauley mouths.

Right at the top of the far wall – on the last landing of the zigzagging stairwell, so far away he can hardly see it – a tiny circle of yellow light, like sunlight.

"God," she repeats. "Please."

And they move for the staircase, trudging towards the far wall, full of hope – they're going to get out. All that matters is they get there. Don't think about the climb. Don't think about the pain. Don't think. Just get there. He can almost feel the sun…

Suddenly, the humming in the air increases; the floor shudders with bone-rattling force, pitch and volume increasing until Trip cries out in pain, eyes scrunching shut, hands over ears. He can barely hear Malcolm shouting at Cauley, telling her to run for it, for Christ's sake, run, run! And when he looks up, she's disappearing between two metal gates, yellow-and-black, forty feet high, sliding out of the wall, disappearing between them on the other side and leaving them behind. He stumbles and reaches for Malcolm, and they collapse together into a shouting, crying heap, robbed of breath and freedom.

"No," says Trip, shaking his head vehemently; he can't even hear himself. "No, no, no!"

The gates close at last, crashing together with a horrible finality; it might as well be forever. He almost cries when he see there's numerals on them, recognisable numbers. The roar subsides, bit by bit, until he can hear the distant footsteps outside. The sudden quiet rings in his ears.

"Do you remember what what we did before we were here?" he says faintly. He's so dizzy he can barely see, not that he's trying much. Christ, it hurts to breathe.

"We were… on a ship," Malcolm says haltingly, and sniffs, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"There was a war," Trip remembers. There's shouting out in the corridor.

"And then we came… home…"

"Home," Trip says. "That's right."

They're facing the looming gates, not looking at the guards approaching them, weapons no doubt pointed at their unprotected backs. Malcolm's eyes are closed, dark lashes on ash-white skin. "At least Cauley got out." Every time he inhales, the blood bubbles audibly in his tattered lungs.

Trip rests his chin on top of Malcolm's dark hair, and holds him until the last, stuttering breaths have died away. He closes his eyes, rocks the body gently, letting them approach and circle him, not looking, not caring. The last thing he hears, far away from himself, is:

"Tch. I told you our humans would get out first – how much was it we bet…?"

Never mind.

END


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